


tickled pink in shades of color

by andthelightbulbclicks



Series: The 100 Chopped Challenge [6]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Romantic Comedy, Alternate Universe - Social Media, Body Painting that Leads to Sex, Chopped: After the Kitchens Close, F/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:41:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24192265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthelightbulbclicks/pseuds/andthelightbulbclicks
Summary: Clarke’s not really sure what convinces her to try a coupley video challenge with an unaware Bellamy when they very clearly are not a couple. She’s really not sure how she didn’t expect that one to blow up in her face.And then shesomehowhas to paint his bare body for a virtual gallery she committed a contribution to?What could possibly go wrong?(So many things.Somany things can go wrong.)((But maybe they could also go right?))
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Series: The 100 Chopped Challenge [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706239
Comments: 18
Kudos: 187
Collections: Chopped: After The Kitchens Close





	tickled pink in shades of color

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [Chopped Choice 2.0: After the Kitchens Close](https://chopped100challenge.tumblr.com/) (AKA: THE SMUT ROUND):
> 
>  **Theme** : Comedy  
>  **Trope #1** : Social Media AU  
>  **Trope #2** : Mythical Creatures  
>  **Trope #3** : Roommates  
>  **Smut Trope #4** : Body Painting that Leads to Sex
> 
> So I don't have a Tik Tok, but I saw a Facebook compilation of the Towel Challenge? Where people walk out naked while their SO plays video games and film their reactions?
> 
> Yeah, so that's what the video is that Clarke's referencing in her moment of genius, lol...

“Wait, _wait_ ,” Murphy wheezes out as he floats back down to his bar stool for the second time. “You’ve gotta– you’ve gotta–”

His laughs stop him from getting the words out as he falls into another bout of laughter that has him floating right back towards the ceiling again for the third time as if Clarke relaying the most mortifying moment of her life to him the first two times wasn’t funny enough. She glares at his semi-transparent form as tears roll down his face from where he’s bouncing against the ceiling. She and Miller seem to be the only two in the bar paying the hysterical ghost an ounce of attention as the rest of the bar patrons carry on with their business as usual – which in their world, she supposes it is.

Meanwhile, Clarke’s entire body hasn’t stopped radiating with embarrassment since everything happened, and watching Murphy laughing so hard he can’t even get words out turns her glare sharper as Murphy starts floating back down again.

“Glare any harder and the ceiling’s going to burst into flames,” Miller comments from next to her.

Clarke turns her attention back to him, where his hand fiddles with the shiny coin he doesn’t let out of his sight. She watches him flick it between his fingers like he always does when he’s thinking hard about something.

“I’m not going to set the place on fire,” she grumbles at him, though she does cross her arms across her chest to reign in the raging fire that embarrassment and frustration is currently fueling inside her. If Murphy floats back up to the ceiling for a fourth freaking time, she’s not making any promises that he won’t be set on fire.

You know, if you can set a ghost on fire.

Miller just shakes his head at her before his eyes catch back on the coin again.

She’ll never understand the fascination with dragons and their shiny trinkets. She’s thankful that the only thing firebirds and dragons have in common is the whole fire thing.

Murphy catches their attention again as his boisterous laughs finally die down into chuckles. “Whew,” he says while wiping his hands under his eyes. “I haven’t–”

And then he stops as another laugh bursts out of him as if he’s replaying what she told them in his head again.

She might actually set him on fire.

Thankfully, Miller seems to have had just about enough of Murphy too as he glares at him. Maybe Miller will set him on fire for her.

The combined glares of the two people there that could set him aflame seems to finally sober him up enough to not rise out of his stool again.

“I don’t think Clarke sent us an urgent text to meet her here just for you to keep antagonizing her,” Miller chastises him, which has Clarke looking back at him in surprise.

Murphy scoffs. “If Clarke wanted to be comforted, she’d be looking for it from someone other than us.”

Which honestly, isn’t exactly the truth. She texted them because they’re two of her best friends and she needed honest perspective and to get drunk.

Miller quirks an eyebrow at Murphy, who finally relents with a huff. “Fine,” he directs his attention toward Clarke. “Tell us the story one more time.”

Clarke tilts her head at him with narrowed eyes, unable to tell if he’s genuinely asking in order to help her out, or if he needs to get another laugh in at her expense.

She should’ve just texted Miller, even if he is playing both sides of the issue as Bellamy’s best friend.

Still, Clarke sighs, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose, feeling how overheated her skin is, not just from the mortifying embarrassment and the three tequila shots she took when she first got here, but from her unsettled fire as well.

When she reopens her eyes, Murphy and Miller are looking at her expectantly.

She heaves a deeper sigh before starting from the beginning again.

“So I don’t know where the challenge is from, but I saw this video on Facebook where people walked out in a towel after a shower and took it off in front of their partners while they were playing video games. And I thought the reactions were cute!” She defends, as she watches the both of them share a sidelong look between them. “And I’ve been trying to get Bellamy to pick up on my hints for forever…,” she continues, thinking about all of the cuddling and tank tops and lingering touches and short shorts and every other hint that seemed to go right past her blissfully oblivious roommate, “so I thought that maybe if I tried it with him, it would finally be enough of a message to him that I wanted him.”

Clarke’s thinking so hard about how things played out, she hardly hears the muffled snort from Murphy.

Because she had hopped in the shower earlier today while Bellamy was playing video games in the living room, rushing through her routine to make sure he’d still be in the same place when she came out.

She spent far too many agonizing minutes trying to make her wet hair look sexy before wrapping one of their smaller bath towels around her still-wet body and sauntering out to where Bellamy was oblivious to her standing there.

She’d even heated her skin a bit so that the water droplets turned to steam right when he was supposed to glance up at her as she called his name.

He had hummed in response, but didn’t take his eyes off of the screen he was playing on.

It made Clarke hesitate, thinking about what the people had done in the video to catch their partner’s attention.

She hesitated for a breath of a second before unwrapping the towel from around her.

“Bell,” she had called again in what she hoped sounded like a sexy voice as she tossed the towel in front of her enough for it to catch in the corner of Bellamy’s eyesight, a smirk settled on her face.

He’d looked up at that, eyes going round and jaw dropping open at the sight of her standing there in all her naked, steamy glory.

She was able to bask in it for all of three seconds before his hand was coming to slap over his eyes as he whirled around to turn his back to her.

“Shit Clarke!” He had yelled, and her entire body froze as it dawned on her just how stupid she had been to think it would actually work.

She stood there, unable to move or speak as Bellamy floundered incoherently. She watched as he started turning every shade of the rainbow, his own embarrassment causing him to lose control of his shape shifting.

She watched as he kept his eyes covered, but still reached out in search of her towel on the ground, scrambling blindly as he muttered apology after apology to her.

She watched him palm at the ground for another moment before she stumbled for the towel herself, wrapping it tightly around her body and gripping it in the front with a deathlike grip as Bellamy still floundered for the stupid thing.

“I–,” she tried to say. She _needed_ to try and explain.

At the single syllable, Bellamy dared to turn slightly and peek through his hand. When he saw her covered and standing there like an idiot, he finally turned back to her, heaving a breath that sounded far too relieved.

The sound crushed her, and she felt the sharp sting of tears she never thought she’d feel because of Bellamy.

“I’m so sorry,” she stumbled out, eyes settling on the current flaming red color of his hair because she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes, whatever color they may be. She’s sure they wouldn’t be the normal warm brown she can get lost in.

He seemed to open his mouth to say something, but she couldn’t bear it.

She’d thought they were heading toward something. She certainly hadn’t been subtle with her hints, but for the first time, she finally realized why.

He wasn’t interested.

He’d been letting her down gently and she just wasn’t getting his hints.

She couldn’t take him crushing her heart while she was already trying to cope with her current mortification in nothing but a bath towel, so she mumbled another apology and ran from the room, locking her bedroom door behind her.

She’d texted Miller and Murphy immediately, begging them to meet her at their usual bar, all while praying that Bellamy wouldn’t knock on her door to try and smooth things over.

She scrambled to throw clothes on, not caring to do more with her hair than to heat dry it quickly to get her out of the apartment as fast as possible while ignoring the continuous buzzing of her phone from the boys.

When she was ready, she tentatively stood in front of her door, listening for any sound in the living room, wondering if Bellamy picked up with his video game right where he left off before he was flashed with unsolicited nudity from his roommate.

She listened carefully, but heard nothing.

She dared to open the door, the area completely empty and Bellamy’s bedroom door shut across the hall from her. It was all she needed to book it out of there before she could do anything stupider like profess her love for him or something.

By the time she’s relayed the story in full to them again, Clarke finds her face flat on the table as one of them slides another full drink in her direction.

“Why did I think that was a good idea?” She wallows, lifting her head up and hoping her watery eyes don’t start shedding the tears in the process. Her voice wobbles with the question, and that seems to be enough to stop Murphy from going off on another bout of laughter. “I’ve ruined everything with him.”

She takes a large gulp of her drink as Murphy and Miller share yet another sidelong glance.

All of her and Bellamy’s friends always tease them about their relationship, always assuring her Bellamy felt the same as she did.

It never even crossed her mind that he’d react the way he did.

Miller goes back to playing with his coin, apparently giving Murphy the lead on whatever they want to say. It makes sense, since out of all their friends, Miller is the one that she and Bellamy truly share. He’s close to the both of them, and she knows for a fact Bellamy texted him immediately after the whole towel fiasco and is still texting him now.

Meanwhile, Clarke’s phone has remained suspiciously silent.

“You didn’t ruin everything with Bellamy, Clarke,” Murphy tells her like she’d be stupid to think otherwise.

Clarke just shakes her head at him. “You didn’t see the look on his face,” she tells him with a note of finality. “He couldn’t even look at me.”

She has never felt embarrassment as sharp, or as swift, or as painful, as the kind she felt while watching Bellamy abruptly turn his back on her with a hand covering his eyes as he blindly reached behind himself for her towel to hand to her while she stood there stark naked, and she doesn’t know how she’s going to be able to fix this.

She looks down at her drink, tracing her fingers through the condensation to soothe her heated skin as Murphy sighs in frustration. “Think about it from his end,” he offers.

At that, Clarke scoffs. “Trust me, I have. He was minding his own business before I assaulted him with my nudity!”

Murphy just rolls his eyes at her, making her bristle as he mutters something under his breath. At that point, Miller takes control of the conversation as he senses the temperature begin to rise around them. He waves over the waitress, who brings Clarke a water as she notes her current drink is somehow empty, and then catches her attention as he flattens his palm on the table with the coin underneath.

“I think there’s two sides to every coin,” he tells her cryptically, eyeing her as she reluctantly sips the water. “So you’ve got your side,” he lifts his palm out, the coin settled in the middle. He flips it over dramatically, the light glinting off it in a flash. Though his eyes stay locked on hers instead of the coin to his credit.

“Now maybe go find out his.”

* * *

They walk her back to her and Bellamy's apartment not long after.

And when she walks inside, the apartment is just as empty as when she left, Bellamy’s door still shut, though she can hear him inside.

She should go knock on his door.

She should do what Miller suggested and just talk to him, see what’s going on in his head.

But she can’t. She’s not sure she can take it.

So instead, she heads to her own room as quietly as possible, closing the door with a soft snick that echoes loudly in the silence.

* * *

Clarke’s laying on her bed when she opens the message from Lincoln.

She’d normally be lounging around in the living room, but since what she’s termed “Towel-Gate” happened a week ago, she and Bellamy have been making their presence as scarce as possible in their common living spaces.

He’d tried broaching the topic the day after, when she was sporting a heavy hangover and enough embarrassment to last her a lifetime, and in a move solely based on self-preservation, she had asked him to pretend it never happened.

She could tell he had wanted to argue by the way his jaw locked in place, but he couldn’t even look at her fully. How were they supposed to have a conversation like that if he couldn’t even look at her?

So he let it go, and she let it go, and they were both letting it go and choosing to continue on with their lives like normal.

Except nothing in the past week had been normal, including the fact that a simple text from Lincoln could be causing dread to pool in her stomach. She stares, probably closer to glares, at the message for another moment before exiting out of her messaging app and opening up Instagram to find what she’s looking for.

And then she glares at her phone some more.

When Lincoln had first told her about his gallery’s plans to host the virtual exhibit, she was thrilled.

She takes an extra moment to send an extra glare at the comment she had left on the post.

She’d contributed a few pieces to some of Lincoln’s other exhibits since he opened the gallery a few years ago, and she was super excited to participate in his newest venture as one of the local artists.

It hadn’t hurt that she had planned on using Bellamy as her canvas at the time she committed to doing it either.

As a Kupua, he can change his appearance at will. And though he doesn’t shapeshift often, he’ll often alter the color of his hair or his eyes into crazy combinations that make Clarke giggle every single time.

She had asked if he’d be willing to let her paint on him for the gallery with two thoughts in mind – one being that she wanted him to morph colors to show various attributes of the painting. She’d thought it’d be cool to show the painting on his beautifully tanned skin, and then display how it altered when he changed to blue, and then green, and so on.

The second was for more selfish reasons.

At the time, she thought it’d be a great assist in her long-term plan in telling him how she felt about him as she painted his shirtless form for hours, allowing her the time to buck up the courage to say what she wanted to say. But that was all before she fucked up and everything completely blew up in her face.

He’d immediately agreed when she asked, proposing the first reason obviously, but that was before things went to shit.

She finds herself glowering at Lincoln’s picture of Octavia’s feet, and when she realizes what she’s doing, she shakes her head in frustration before switching back to Lincoln’s message.

Her teeth are digging into her bottom lip as she presses the send button on the last message.

If Lincoln didn’t know that things weren’t great between her and Bellamy right now, that meant Octavia didn’t know. And if Octavia didn’t know, that meant that Bellamy hadn’t said anything to her, or probably anyone but Miller.

She felt the sting on her lip as her teeth dug in further. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be breaking skin.

She couldn’t back out now. She just confirmed to Lincoln that she’d get the photo to him by tomorrow. A photo of Bellamy.

A photo of a shirtless, painted Bellamy.

A Bellamy that she hasn’t spoken to directly for a week now.

Clarke tosses her phone on her bed in frustration, staring up at her bedroom ceiling as she hears the rustle of sounds from the kitchen through her cracked bedroom door.

They’d been avoiding each other so thoroughly, they’d been alternating entering into the living room or kitchen in some kind of unspoken agreement.

She reaches her hands up to run them over her face, rubbing the heels of her palms into her eyes for a second before looking back up at the ceiling morosely.

She gives herself one more moment before sitting up and swinging her feet to the floor, standing up before she can talk herself out of it.

When she swings her door open, it creaks loud enough to catch Bellamy’s attention from where he’s standing near the stove stirring something that smells incredible.

They haven’t been eating together, but that doesn’t stop him from leaving her the delicious leftovers.

He watches her walk into the kitchen, eyeing her hesitantly like he’s afraid she’ll disappear like Murphy does sometimes.

“What are you making?” She asks, stepping up next to him to look into the pot, making sure to leave enough space in between them.

It looks like it’s the sauce for his pasta, but when he doesn’t confirm her suspicions, she turns to find him still staring at her openly.

She ducks her head as that fire she always has to be mindful of grows, making her body temperature rise.

She catches him shake his head at the edge of her vision before he’s clearing his throat and turning his attention back to the sauce.

“Figured I’d make pasta for dinner,” he explains, eyes staying focused ahead of himself, even if Clarke can see his ears tinge red. And she’s brought right back to how mortified he was a week ago that he lost control of his shapeshifting.

It takes everything in her not to turn back around and hole up in her room until he clears out.

“Do you want me to start the noodles?” She asks, and tries not to cringe when he looks at her in shock. It’s not an abnormal request, it’s actually their normal routine for dinners like this. But it goes to show just how tense and distant things have gotten between them over the past week. How much she’s ruined everything.

He must catch her hesitation, because he gives her a small smile before tilting his head towards the box of noodles on the counter.

It’s a truce, she thinks.

A truce that she hopes will start bridging the unintentional gap that has formed between them.

They work in a silence that teeters the edge between awkward and companionable, and when the food is ready, they both head to the living room with their plates in some unspoken agreement instead of heading to their separate rooms like they’ve been doing.

“I heard that Amy had the baby on the newest episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” Bellamy says after a few minutes of forks clinking against plates being the only sound in the room. It’s another olive branch that Clarke would be foolish not to take as she gives him a nod and reaches for the remote to pull it up on the television.

The silence veers further into the companionable side of things as they finish their meals and the episode plays, the both of them making a comment here or there until the credits are rolling without another episode to load and keep the awkwardness away.

Bellamy takes it upon himself to take the dishes to the kitchen, and she’s sure if she doesn’t say something else soon, he’ll head straight to his bedroom.

She twists where she’s sitting so that she’s leaning against the couch’s back cushions with her arms crossed over the top so that she can see him rinsing the plates in the sink.

“So Lincoln texted me earlier asking if I had my virtual gallery submission ready yet,” she blurts out, hopefully sounding vaguely conversational.

Clarke watches from the living room as Bellamy’s body locks up with tension at her words. Her own body responds in kind, the rising tension in the air putting her on edge.

His eyes remaining focused on the dishes that are undoubtedly rinsed by now. “When do you need to have the painting done by?”

She internally winces, knowing her response will only ruin things further.

“Tomorrow?” She says as a question, even though there’s no question about. When he remains silent, Clarke gives him the out she had planned. “I can text Miller or Murphy to do it if you don’t want to anymore. Or I’m sure Raven would let me. Or I bet Monty and Harper–”

“Clarke,” Bellamy easily cuts off her rambling with just her name.

She had looked away when she offered him the out, but when Clarke looks back at him now, she’s surprised to find the fondness that’s always there.

“Do you still want to paint me?” He asks her, seeming hesitant himself. “Because I won’t be offended if you want to have someone else help you out.”

It makes Clarke pause, as if she could almost believe he thinks she doesn't want his help.

She climbs off the couch, walking into the kitchen so that she can look at him and he can see the genuineness when she says, “of course I want your help.”

At that, Bellamy ducks his head.

“But only if you want to,” she’s sure to add.

“Whatever you need,” he tells her confidently, looking at her with a warmth that Clarke feels down to her toes.

It’s her turn to clear her throat at the sincerity of his words. “Um, are you free now?”

She’s never had to ask him that since they moved in together after graduating college. They’ve always been in sync, always knowing what’s going on in each other’s lives. It’s another indicator of how badly she’s messed things up.

For whatever reason, that brings a smirk to his face. “You want me taking my shirt off after stuffing my face full of pasta?”

It startles a laugh out of Clarke. “I’m sure your abs look perfect as always.”

The words slip out without her even thinking, and her face flames up as Bellamy’s eyebrows disappear behind the curls on his forehead.

“I mean–,” Clarke tries to recover from the blunder, “I just–”

Her hands start flailing like they always do when she’s scrambling for words, and instead of Bellamy looking at her in disgust, there’s a hint of amusement in his eyes as he smirks at her.

“I want to paint your back anyways,” she manages to say, wanting to crawl into a hole and never emerge. She’d flee into the ocean, but firebirds and water are not a great mix.

When Bellamy just continues looking at her like that, Clarke opens her mouth again, hoping not to make things even worse than they already are. “I’ll go grab my paints,” she tells him, pointing back towards her room. “Is it okay if we use your room?”

She’s sure nobody else would notice his brief hesitation, because it’s gone almost immediately as he nods. “Yeah, sure.” He starts heading towards his room as Clarke veers into her own to grab the paints. She glances back at him as he opens his door, yanking his shirt off with one hand in that sexy way guys do and revealing the wide expanse of his gorgeous, freckled, muscled back to her without him even realizing.

She gulps as she turns back around to walk into her room. If she doesn’t calm down from looking at his fucking back, she’s going to set their entire apartment on fire.

She grabs the body paints from her supplies, giving her an extra second to take a breath before heading across the hall to Bellamy’s room, walking in and finding him already settled on his stomach with his crossed arms stretched out and pillowing his head, looking like the most beautiful creature on the planet.

She’s so fucked.

She walks up to the side of the bed he’s facing, feeling his eyes on her as soon as she is in his line of sight.

She places the tray she had grabbed next to his head, carefully opening the jars of body paint and balancing them on the tray so as not to make a mess of his white sheets. She rests the few paintbrushes she grabbed on the tray as well before finally glancing at the canvas before her.

There’s a tension in the air that feels different than the one they’ve been living with for the past week as Clarke carefully climbs onto the bed, her bare knees just inches away from brushing against his side.

Bellamy truly is beautiful.

She wants to reach her hand out and trace the slope of his back, follow the ripple of broad muscle across his shoulders. She wants to sink her teeth into where his neck meets his shoulder. She wants to slide her hands over his perfect ass.

She wants, she wants, she _wants_.

Forget Towel-Gate being her worst idea ever. _This_ is the stupidest thing she has ever done in her life.

Neither of them say a word as she openly stares at him. He probably thinks she’s eyeing him in preparation of mapping out what she wants to paint, and the thought immediately makes her feel guilty.

Without a word, she reaches for her medium brush and dips it into the open green paint. She brushes the color into the palette she also set on the tray before dipping into the blue as well and mixing the colors together. Once she has the shade she’s looking for, she leans forward slightly over Bellamy and runs the paintbrush across his shoulder blades. 

A full body shiver runs up Bellamy’s back at the touch as he gasps almost silently.

“Sorry,” she tells him softly, lifting the brush off of his skin immediately. “I should have warned you that I was starting. It’s going to feel a little cool on your skin.”

“It’s fine,” is his barely-heard, mumbled response, but Clarke would swear his hair wavered between his usual black curls and the teal now splashed across his skin for the shortest of seconds before turning back. 

She brings the brush close to his skin, hesitating as she notes his shoulders locked with tension, every muscle in his back still holding a tightness to them. 

“I’m going to start again, okay?” She warns him gently, waiting until he silently nods his head before placing the paint on his skin again.

She continues with the blue-green color, trailing it down his left side, having easy access right by her knees, but as she tries to mimic the swirls on his other side, she finds herself letting out a frustrated noise.

“Everything okay?” Bellamy asks, breaking the tense silence for the first time since she started. 

“Everything’s fine,” she assures him, trying to correct the swirl she just made at the awkward angle. “I just can’t get– I need to be–,” she can’t really explain what comes over her as she shuffles her knees closer to him on the bed until she’s swinging her right leg over him and straddling Bellamy, settling right on the dimples that rest above his ass.

She’s able to easily correct her mistake at this angle, and it doesn't quite hit her with what she just did until she realizes that Bellamy looks like he’s hardly breathing.

“Is this okay?” She asks him instantly, already lifting her leg to climb off of him, but he lifts an arm from under his head to rest on her leg and stop her from moving.

She freezes as his rough hand rests on her bare thigh, his tanned skin a stark contrast to her paleness as his palm engulfs it. “It’s alright, Clarke,” he assures her, even as there’s a tightness to his voice that wasn’t there before. “Can you work better like this?”

His voice is definitely an octave lower. 

“Yes,” she says no louder than a whisper, making sure she’s looking him in the eye when he glances back at her.

“Then keep going,” he tells her, lifting his hand from her skin and bringing it back to tuck under his head again. 

She has to choke down the gasp as she realizes he must’ve brushed the red paint when stretching his hand out to stop her, because his hand left three red fingerprints on her thigh where his thumb and two fingers gripped her skin. 

Her legs tighten around Bellamy’s torso as she finds herself unable to look away from the splashes of red, matching the flames simmering under her skin.

“Clarke,” Bellamy says again, pulling her from her trance.

“Sorry,” she tells him again, grabbing a thinner brush to start mixing a pink together. He has no idea the effect he has on her. 

She forces herself to get into the groove of painting after that, only allowing her eyes to trace over the red fingerprints every so often before making herself focus again. She can’t set herself on fire with Bellamy underneath her.

She thinks that Bellamy’s dozed off as his breathing evens out and he remains silent, even as his back remains tense. So she startles from the zone she’s in when he speaks.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly, causing her to pause in her paint stroke.

It brings her up short, because she’s most definitely the one who has at least a hundred different things to be apologizing for. 

He must take her pause as the go ahead he needs to keeping talking. “I shouldn’t have openly ogled you last week. When your towel accidentally fell, I should have rushed to pick it up, or I should have turned around instantly instead of staring at you, or – literally anything other than what I actually did.”

Clarke sits there, straddling her roommate’s ass, completely in shock, before a hysterical laugh bursts out of her. 

The sound startles Bellamy enough that his hair shifts to a shocking pink like is painted on his skin before blinking back to black. 

“ _You’re_ sorry?” Clarke asks hysterically. She should have known Bellamy would put the blame on himself, convince himself that he was the one that did something wrong. “Bell, _I’m_ the one that needs to apologize,” she says to the back of his head as he refuses to look at her. “I _wanted_ you to see me without a towel.”

At that, she’s left teetering as Bellamy twists his body around to look at her fully.

She wants to protest because he’s rolling his paint-covered back onto his bed, collectively ruining his sheets and her painting in the process as it smears across her right thigh, but none of the words escape her mouth at the raw look etched into Bellamy’s face.

“What are you talking about?” He asks, rolling all the way into his back, his gaze burning into hers so that she can’t look away. 

“I–,” she stutters out, not knowing how to get out of this without confessing everything to him and getting her heart broken all over again.

But she can’t lie to him. She won’t.

“I’ve been trying to get you to notice how I feel for a while now,” she says, daring to rest her paint-covered hand on his bare chest, right above his heart. “I thought maybe you just weren’t getting the message and thought that me walking out all steamy and naked would do the trick. I didn’t–,” she chokes up thinking about the mortification that came after. “I didn’t realize it was because you weren’t interested until then.”

She can’t bring herself to look at him as she says the words, focusing instead on her hand over his heart even as she can feel his gaze burning into the side of her face.

She feels his hand grip her elbow, and then slide down her forearm, leaving a trail of fire tingling her skin that has nothing to do with her internal fire. 

“Clarke,” Bellamy rasps out as his hand slides past her wrist to lift her palm from where it’s resting on his chest and lining it up with his palm, drawing her eyes to the hand print she left on him. It flares something possessive in her, something she has no right to feel.

“Clarke,” he says firmer, finally getting her attention. Her breath is taken away by the anguish and hunger she finds in his eyes, the two emotions seemingly impossible to see at once. “I’m not sure what I did to make you think I couldn’t possibly want you,” he says, becoming more empassioned with each word and leaving Clarke’s world spinning, “but let me be perfectly clear when I say I want you more than I have wanted anything in my entire life.”

The words leave her reeling, knowing she can’t possibly have heard him correctly. There’s no way he’s saying everything she could want to hear. 

“But I thought you couldn’t bear to look at me,” she says so quietly she’s not even sure he heard her.

“ _Clarke_ ,” he says, his free hand moving up to grip her waist underneath her tank top as the hand gripping her hand tugs to hold her attention. “I felt like I was objectifying you,” he explains carefully. “I was so scared that I destroyed everything we had because I couldn’t look away from you.”

“You didn’t,” she tells him sincerely, feeling like she might burst into flames with the emotions rushing through her. “I thought I ruined everything.” The statement is small and scared, emphasizing her very real fear that she had lost the most important person in her life.

“Never,” Bellamy answers with promise, the hand on her waist reaching up to cup her face, threading back to weave into her loose bun. He tugs her down, her body going willingly as he releases her hand to hold her face just a breath above where he lays on the bed. “You could never lose me, Clarke. I’ve been in love with you for way too long to let that happen.” And with those words echoing in her head like a symphony, he reaches up to seal his vow with a kiss that has her gasping against his lips.

Clarke reaches her own hands up to thread into his dark curls, allowing her body to fully fall against his as another gasp falls from her lips and Bellamy’s tongue wastes no time in slipping in to lick into her mouth.

Clarke’s hope jolts her forward with the action, causing a groan to erupt from Bellamy’s chest as Clarke suddenly becomes fully aware of the hardness she unwittingly was just grinding down on. She does it again, even as she can’t bring herself to drag her lips away from his, drinking in the moan that slips past his lips.

She forces herself to pull away, just far enough so that when he opens his eyes to look at her, she can hardly see the brown of his eyes around his blown pupils.

She wants to embrace whatever is currently happening.

But before she can, her eyes catch on his hair.

“I got paint in your hair,” she says while reaching the same hand up, brushing it through his curls and leaving a stain of blue and pink on his cheek and ear.

At that, Bellamy chuckles, shaking her on top of him in the process. “I got paint literally everywhere else,” he quips teasingly, gesturing to his sheets, before his eyes catch on the paint on her thigh. “And I’ve ruined your painting.” This statement is serious, regretful, and Clarke’s having none of that when she’s straddling the man she’s in love with while he lays there aroused and shirtless.

So instead, she grinds down on him again, her lips brushing against his as she smirks. “We can make another painting,” she whispers to him. “I want to do other things right now.”

He opens his mouth with a retort, but she stops it as she crushes her mouth to his again, getting lost in the tangle of tongues and heat that is flowing through every inch of her body. She pulls away to reach up and yank her tank top off, her bra going right after. 

She looks down to find Bellamy gaping at her with a hunger in his eyes she wants to drown in. She leans back down again, brushing her breasts up against his bare chest and causing them both to moan with the sensation.

“I love you too,” she whispers to him as she holds herself right above him. “And you can ogle at me as much as you want, anytime you want,” she tells him, lifting up again so he can get the full view of her on top of him.

“Fuck,” Bellamy gasps out, “I’ve been turned on since you climbed on top of me.”

A giggle erupts as she smiles down at him, but her eyes immediately catch on that hand print she left over his heart, her breath leaving her in a whoosh. 

Bellamy follows her line of sight, grinning wickedly when he sees what’s catching her eyes. “You left your mark on my heart,” he tells her sincerely, causing her to snort.

“You’re so cheesy,” she tells him, even as her slow grind starts up again at his words.

“But you love me anyways,” he retorts, smile bright as he looks up at her. 

“I really do,” she answers, dipping her hand into one of the paints beside them blindly, and placing her hand against his neck as he gasps at the coolness of the paint, allowing her to lick into his mouth nice and dirty. “But I like leaving my mark too,” she whispers deviously as she drags the orange paint across his pecs in a quick slide of her hand. 

He glances down at his chest, staring at the orange in surprise before reaching his own hand into the purple paint and placing his palm flat against the base of her throat. Their eyes stay locked as he slowly, seductively, drags his hand down between her breasts, the sensation causing goosebumps to erupt in his wake as the purple trails down the length of her body until it meets the top of her shorts and he moves it to grip her waist tightly. 

“You are a goddess, Clarke Griffin,” he tells her in wonderment, his own eyes unable to look away at his own mark on her, and she’s wondering if the possessiveness of his actions isn’t going to completely drive her wild.

Clarke grips both of his biceps as best as she can, tugging until he gets the message and rolls them over so that he’s hovering over her and she’s caged into his embrace exactly as she always imagined.

“I want more,” she gasps as Bellamy leans down to trail kisses down her neck, following the purple trail down the length of her body, detouring to her breasts and lavishing them with licks and nips that have her squirming underneath him. “Bell, I need _more_ ,” she all but moans as he sucks one of her nipples into his mouth.

He leans back to look at her, and she can’t help but laugh fondly at the bit of purple that got caught on his cheek with his actions. 

“But maybe keep the paint away from the private bits,” she tells him, causing him to chuckle as he tugs her shorts and panties off in one smooth sweep and she’s laying there for him completely bare, san for the paint dashed across her body. 

Bellamy looks down at her center morosely, almost like he’s grieving the loss of being able to go further with the paint smeared across his face, before she’s prodding him with his foot to catch his attention.

“I promise you I will more than happily let you eat me out the moment we’re free of the paint,” she tells him, trying to get her toe hooked into his gym shorts and boxers to tug them down and give him the hint.

He does, with an amused chuckle, before taking the hint and tugging his bottoms off before crawling back up her body.

“I’m holding you to that, Griffin,” he says, using the hand he doesn’t have paint on to trail down to her heat. She gasps as he runs his fingers through her slick, finding her more than ready for him as he groans into her neck.

“Fuck,” he whispers hoarsely, pulling back to look at her as she moans in agreement at the sentiment. 

“That’s right, Blake,” she tells him challengingly, “let's fuck.”

He chuckles at her even as he does just as she asks, gliding his cock against her opening once, twice, before sliding into her in a thrust that has her body arching into his as she whines with how good she feels, with how _full_ she feels.

Her arms wrap around his back as he pulls out and thrusts back in firmly, her hands sliding against the still-wet creation on his back as the paint on their chests smears into unidentifiable colors.

His thrusts pick up pace as Clarke’s moans grow louder, unable to get a firm grasp on his back, instead choosing to thread her fingers into his hair and tugging until Bellamy lets out a low groan that she feels straight in her core. She feels her fire erupt inside her. She wants to hear that sound for the rest of her life.

She knows she’s not going last as his hand unintentionally brushes against the red fingerprints he left earlier, lifting her leg higher and hitting a spot inside her that turns her vision as colorful as the paints they’re covered in.

She clenches around him, and those colors turn to stars as her orgasm rips through her, leaving her a shivering, shaking mess that is only anchored by the strong arms around her and the fire she has to fight to control so as not to burn either of them.

Bellamy’s hair is dripping sweat, undoubtedly from the heat she’s radiating, but it doesn’t stop him from carrying her through her release with a hand on her clit and his lips on her throat. And once she comes down enough to be aware of her surroundings again, she pulls on his hair again to get a look at him losing control. 

Bellamy’s always beautiful, but it’s truly a sight to watch him completely lose control— his eyes, and hair, and skin morphing and blending with the paint on his skin for seconds at a time before shifting to another shade as he groans out his own release in a magical kaleidoscope of colors.

She reaches up to kiss him through it, and by the time she pulls back to look at him again, he's settled back into control and those familiar molten brown eyes are looking back at her. 

He slides out, rolling onto his back, knocking the tray of paints onto the floor in the process without a second thought and tugging her into his chest as they both catch their breaths. He holds her close despite the heat radiating from her, his hand tugging one of hers up to again rest on the hand print on his chest that’s somehow still identifiable after the mess they just made.

“I love you,” he whispers softly. She feels him drop a kiss to the crown of her head, and she’s sure there’ll be purple there when she checks in a mirror after. “I should have said something so much sooner.”

“Me too,” she says, gently kissing the only bare inch of skin she can reach on his chest. “Next time I’ll just tell you I love you instead of trying to seduce you.”

Her head lifts with his chuckles. “Feel free to seduce me anytime you want.”

“Noted,” Clarke answers with a yawn, snuggling impossibly closer to him.

“Not that I want to move, but we’re going to have to redo your painting,” he whispers to her as she feels herself already starting to doze off. “It’s too bad we can’t use these technicolor sheets as your contribution,” he jokes.

Clarke hums in response. “S’okay,” she mumbles into his chest. “We can worry about it tomorrow.”

She feels Bellamy shake his head from where she lays. “We can’t sleep in this mess, we need-” 

She blindly reaches a hand up to where she thinks his mouth is, holding a finger to his smiling lips.

“Tomorrow,” she repeats sleepily, drifting off to his soft chuckle. 

**Author's Note:**

> Other tropes that make an appearance:  
> ✓ character struggles to talk because they are either laughing or crying (lol Murphy)  
> ✓ miscommunication  
> ✓ two characters giving extremely biased flashbacks of the same event
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this slightly cracky, smutty fic!
> 
> Also-- I will never be over how much I love Bob referring to Eliza as his goddess 😍
> 
> \---  
> And after the results...  
> 2nd place for use of tropes & best overall  
> 3rd place for use of theme & most creative  
> (Thaaaanks!)


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